Ancient Christianity: Quick Facts

Answers to questions raised by 'The Da Vinci Code'

BY: Marcie Lenk

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Were There Gospels Aside From the Four in the Christian Bible?

Yes. The word gospel means “good news.” In the years following Jesus' death, stories about his teachings--and the meaning of his life and death--were transmitted orally. At some point, different members of the early Christian Church began writing down their versions of these stories and teachings, and it was not until the middle of the second century that we hear of disputes over which gospels should be accepted as authoritative. Even then, it took another few centuries before the Church decided what would be in the official list (canon) of the New Testament.

The non-canonical gospels provide a window into the diversity of early Christian belief and practice, and show that there was a level of variety among early Christians of which many contemporary people are unaware.

Here are some of the gospels that did not make it into that canon:

"The Gospel of Thomas": This gospel is mostly a list of sayings attributed to Jesus. It has almost no narrative. The text claims that these secret sayings of Jesus were recorded by a man named Didymos Judas Thomas. While some of the sayings in this gospel are also found in the canonical gospels, others are unique. For example: “Jesus said: Become passers-by.” (Gospel of Thomas 42). In general, this gospel shows Jesus urging his disciples to remove themselves from the world and to seek wisdom: “Jesus said: Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find” (Gospel of Thomas 2).

"The Gospel of Mary": This gospel begins by telling of a resurrected Jesus, who is preaching to the apostles. His teaching emphasizes inner, spiritual knowledge. Jesus encourages his disciples not to get mired in the physical passions. After the preaching is finished, an argument ensues between Peter and Mary Magdalene over who is the best disciple, and who understood most about Jesus’ teaching.

"The Infancy Gospel of James": This text contains the story of the miraculous birth and childhood of Mary, the mother of Jesus. According to this gospel, Mary was raised in the Jerusalem Temple. Upon reaching puberty, she is sent to live with Joseph, who refuses to marry her, but agrees to be her guardian. The story continues with Jesus’ conception and birth, following the basic narrative in the Gospel of Matthew, with a few differences.

Suggested Reading

On Beliefnet: What would Christianity be like if gnostic texts had made it into the Bible?
On Beliefnet: What are the gnostic gospels?
Book: Robert J. Miller, ed. "The Complete Gospels"

Why Were Only Four Gospels Included in the Christian Bible?

In the second century C.E., a Christian teacher named Marcion argued that only Mark and some of Paul’s letters truly represented Jesus’ teachings. For Marcion, all other versions of the Gospel were too Jewish; he did not believe that any part of the Jewish Bible should be considered Holy Scripture. Other Church leaders argued that not one, but four gospels were to be considered Holy Scripture--the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--and Marcion was declared a heretic.

Over the next few centuries, culminating with the Council of Nicea in the fourth century, Church leaders worked on establishing “orthodox” Christianity. The texts included in the New Testament reflect what they believed to be orthodox, reflecting Jesus’ true teachings. Even concerning the four gospels that we consider canonical today, Church leader engaged in heated debates about which to include in the Bible, and eventually some consensus formed around the four. Until the fourth century, however, it is clear that different Christian communities accepted as authoritative texts which would later be declared heretical or apocryphal (outside the canon).

Suggested Reading

On Beliefnet: Gnostic Texts vs. the New Testament

What Is the Feminine Divine in Christianity?

The feminine divine is, as the terms implies, the idea of God in feminine terms. For example, in the Apocryphon of John, a text found in the Nag Hammadi Codex, God speaks to John, the brother of James, saying, “I am the One who is with you always, I am the Father, I am the Mother, I am the Son.” Another Nag Hammadi text describes the Spirit as “Mother of many,” and an even more radical text records, “I am the first and the last, I am the honored one and the scorned one, I am the whore and the holy one, I am the wife and the virgin, I am the mother and the daughter....”

While these texts were not included in the New Testament, and many were rejected as heretical, they show that some Christians in the first centuries did not see a problem speaking of God in feminine terms.

Many people are accustomed to thinking of God as a male figure, referring to God as He, Father, Master, or King. However, many Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians would point out that any theology in which God is not physical cannot insist on limiting God to a single gender. God is found to be "gendered" in the Bible partly because Greek and Hebrew are both gendered languages.

While many other religions freely imagine God as female, the monotheistic religions tend to limit such descriptions. Additionally, many ancient writers probably had difficulty imagining the power of God in the possession of anyone but a male figure. However, some ancient biblical writers did imagine the divine as feminine. For example, Isaiah 66 describes God as a woman in childbirth and then as a nursing mother. Thus the feminine divine is already present in the Hebrew Bible.

In the biblical Book of Proverbs, the concept of Wisdom (hokhma, a feminine noun) is personified as a woman (chapters 7-9). That book describes Wisdom as a power which pre-existed the world (3:19-20), and through which God created the world. For Christians, the feminine divine is present in the role of Sophia, the (feminine) Greek term for Wisdom. According to these texts, truth comes into the world through a combination of the male God and the female Sophia.

Contrary to Dan Brown's portrayal, there is no evidence that the feminine divine was intentionally snuffed out by early Church leaders, as hints of this aspect of the divine remain in Christian texts. In a generally patriarchal society, it was not difficult for proponents of a patriarchal church to have their way as orthodoxy developed--but there's no evidence of the sort of intentional plot depicted in "The Da Vinci Code," in which a particular group of leaders conspired to oust Christians who wanted a greater role for women and the feminine divine.

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